


every supervillain needs his theme music

by moodmaker



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Body Swap, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lee Jeno-centric, M/M, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 12:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19974397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodmaker/pseuds/moodmaker
Summary: Jeno’s got a lot on his plate already—he just wants to figure out how to control his own superpower, help Doyoung take down Kun and Chenle, and get his GED on time. The last thing he needs is to suddenly start swapping bodies with the worst flirt he’s ever had the misfortune of encountering.





	every supervillain needs his theme music

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to the mods for being so patient + understanding with me, and for all of their hard work during this fest! additional thanks to d, for cheerleading and editing with me until the wee hours of the morning, j, for all of her hilarious comments, and l, for her unwavering support. love you all!!
> 
> to the prompter: apologies for the lack of angst, but i hope you enjoy regardless!
> 
> title from power by kanye west

Like some kind of prophet for danger, Jeno feels the blast seconds before it comes.

There are a few telltale signs: the plum sky, the gust of wind that picks up around him, the premature _crack!_ as another tree trunk prepares to halve itself, the acrid sting of burnt asphalt on his knees, but most notably the pulse working itself through his body, coursing through his bloodstream, gathering at the ends of his fingertips, threatening to leap outward with each breath he takes—

_This is gonna be a big one._

“Doyoung hyung,” he calls, sinking onto his knees in the middle of a spotlighted street, “it’s happening again.”

“What, no advance notice? No RSVP? Not even a half-assed apology on an Evite forum?” Doyoung makes a sound in the back of his throat. “How rude.”

Jeno cracks a grin. There’s a flash of light, spots blurring together at the edges of his vision, and then the world goes black.

-

Jeno gets hit with a billion volts of pure electricity. It’s not the first time that it’s happened, but usually the excess voltage swirling around in his body from the buildup is enough to pull himself out of the aftershocks. This time, he can barely spare the second that it takes for him to think _shit!_ before his head’s being slammed against the ground with a nasty crunch. The resulting ringing in his skull is partly from just having been tossed around in a self-induced electric centrifuge, but mostly it’s from feeling like his insides are slowly being drained out of him. 

He grits his teeth. _Override your own current. Reroute the electrons inward. Pull the volts from the atmosphere, from deep underground, from anywhere you can get them._ He feels his muscles lock tightly as he takes a deep, shuddering breath, and opens his eyes.

He’s never had to fall back upon the city’s power grid before.

“Jeno? You okay?”

“Just peachy,” he assures. The only casualty tonight has been his trademark eye smile.

Doyoung doesn’t look entirely convinced, but they both know that there’s nothing more either of them can do about it. “Alright,” he says, draping an arm around Jeno’s shoulders. “Let’s forget about the mission for now, yeah?”

Jeno grimaces. While he hadn’t exactly been fond of this particular mission (or any, for that matter), it feels like too much of a waste to turn back now. He opens his mouth to suggest that they keep going, but Doyoung’s already staring him down with the same look he’d given the food delivery man last week when their order had taken too long to arrive. 

“If you say so,” he shrugs, trying his best to hide his disappointment.

“Are you finally dropping your act?” Doyoung’s face leers delightedly at him, “aww Jeno, you should’ve told me that you _loooove_ being evil, that it’s been your most treasured childhood dream and now you’re finally realizing it—”

Jeno scowls. “You’re just fueling my supervillain origin story!”

“Can’t fuel it if it already exists,” Doyoung flicks the side of his head, smirking. “Admit it, you wanna raid Kun just as badly as I do.”

Jeno feels his jaw clench almost instinctively at the mention of Kun’s name before he manages to get himself to relax. What kind of Pavlov conditioning has Doyoung secretly been forcing upon him? 

“If it’ll shut you up,” he snorts, slipping out from under Doyoung’s arm. 

“Hey! You take that back!”

Jeno turns around to smile winsomely before he catches sight of the telltale red and blue lights flashing just around the corner. “Good luck hyung!”

“With what, kicking your ass?” Doyoung grins, hands already glowing. “I don’t need luck when—oh, _come on._ ”

Poking his head out carefully, Jeno snickers as he watches Doyoung get manhandled into a police car. Serves him right.

-

Jeno never set out to become the sole protegé of “the biggest threat Seoul’s seen since J-pop was introduced” (Doyoung’s words, not his), but he supposes that life has its way of throwing curveballs. Usually he’s quick enough to roll with the punches—dead parents, unexpected lightning bolts, reluctantly slipping into a life of evil so that Doyoung will continue to pay for his GED classes, et cetera et cetera—but he’s starting to get kind of tired of this whole “growth mindset” thing.

Case in point: when he wakes up the next day and immediately finds himself face to face with a grotesquely disfigured frog plushie (that he would never be caught _dead_ owning, thank you very much), he does the most sensible thing he can: he screams.

“Shut up,” someone hisses.

Jeno squints, because that’s certainly not Doyoung’s voice. And the more that he looks around, the more he realizes that this isn’t his bed, nor his room, nor his… face?

He sits up with a start, staring in the mirror perched conveniently across the room. The face that stares back at him is definitely not his.

“Oh my god,” Jeno whispers, bringing a hand up to poke at his cheek. “Oh my god?”

Somehow over the course of the night, Jeno’s gained the power to both shapeshift _and_ teleport? He glances around again, mentally running through what he knows: a) he doesn’t look like himself anymore, b) he’d unconsciously chosen to teleport to the room of humanity’s worst offender (who on earth would buy such a hideous plushie?) and c) angry footsteps are pounding toward him in a manner oddly reminiscent to the _stories_ he’s heard about Doyoung’s temper tantrums. He gulps and feels blindly for the current in his body, waiting for it to wash over his hands.

“Can you be quiet for once in your life?” The same voice from before says. 

Jeno cracks an eye open tentatively. His hands are still, no blue crackling, no oddly sulfuric smell. It’s only when he makes eye contact with a highly irritated, highly unamused boy in the room (who must’ve been the one yelling at him to shut up), that Jeno realizes. He didn’t suddenly gain two more superpowers. _He’s in someone else’s body._

“Oh my god,” he says, for the third time that day, and promptly passes out.

-

By the time Jeno wakes up, he’s back in his room. He flips around to check, and yup, this is it. There are the posters and the glow-in-the-dark stars and the bunny plushies he’d swiped from Doyoung’s room sitting snugly on the corner of his bed. He pats them gently before leaning over to grab his phone and check the time. Except, when he switches it on, he finds that his previously selected lockscreen of him and Doyoung in front of the merry-go-round at Lotte World has been replaced by a selfie of the same face he’d seen in the mirror yesterday, brightly flashing a peace sign at the camera. Jeno squints. Upon further inspection, there’s a messily scrawled note at the bottom, reading: _heyyyyy cutie <333 wanna swap more than just bodies next time?_

Jeno blinks. He didn’t realize that this switch was a mutual kind of thing, though it seems kind of obvious now that he thinks about it. Where else could the other guy have gone if Jeno was literally in his body?

On cue, his phone pings with a text. Jeno frowns and swipes it open, already on-guard when he sees that the contact name is _nana <3\. _

**from: _nana <3_**  
hehe renjun tells me that u fainted after less than five minutes

 **from: _nana <3_**  
couldn’t look directly at me for too long, hmmm jeno-yah?

Jeno clicks his phone shut and flops back onto his bed with a groan. Well, there went his plan to pretend that nothing ever happened. His phone pings insistently from where it’s lying on his stomach and Jeno raises it lazily, eyes going wide at how quickly the notifications fly by. Does this guy seriously have nothing better to do? Jeno’s got a lot on his plate already—he just wants to figure out how to control his own superpower, help Doyoung take down Kun and Chenle, and get his GED on time. The last thing he needs is to suddenly start swapping bodies with the worst flirt he’s ever had the misfortune of encountering.

Jeno unlocks his phone, changes his lockscreen back, and blocks _nana <3._ Problem solved.

-

“Suit up,” Doyoung says as he flicks the lights on in Jeno’s room. “We’re robbing a bank.”

“That’s the most cliché thing I’ve ever heard,” Jeno groans, grabbing his mask anyway. “Doyoung, are you losing it? Have you secretly been hiding a terminal illness from me and this is your way of telling me where the inheritance money is so that I don’t have to jump through legal hoops to get it—”

Jeno cuts himself off as the ground shudders beneath his feet in warning. He glares at Doyoung, who rolls his eyes in response but stops the shaking nonetheless. “How else do you think I pay for your GED classes?”

“You mean being evil doesn’t pay well?” Jeno gasps, a hand over his mouth. “And here I thought you were a cheapskate by _choice._ ”

“Do you want to go study in America or not?”

“Sir, yes sir!” 

Doyoung flicks his forehead anyway. Tsk. Tough love.

-

The plan was fairly simple: Jeno would stun everyone inside the bank momentarily, Doyoung would nab the money they needed, and then they’d be on their way. No harm done. Win-win situation all around.

Except Jeno’s power glitches on him at the worst possible moment and he’s left staring blankly at a bank executive as his palm is held out in front of him uselessly. It feels like he’s an actor in one of those movies fighting green-screened monsters, stuck posturing uselessly while he waits for the CGI to kick in. The bank executive raises an eyebrow at him and Jeno flushes. Gosh, this is so awkward.

“Doyoung,” he calls, “how badly do we need the money? Because I could cut down on my cat cafe visits if you _really_ need me to—”

“Just do your job,” Doyoung snaps back at him. Jeno sighs as he turns back to the bank executive, who now looks more than a little alarmed.

Jeno grabs the guy’s arm before he can go anywhere. “Uh huh, don’t even try to call for help. Trust me, it won’t do any good.”

“You’re a criminal,” the guy snarls in disgust, trying desperately to twist out of Jeno’s grasp.

“Supervillain in training,” Jeno corrects, and feels his hands crackle to life. _Now we’re talking,_ he thinks, and lets the power flow out of him.

-

“Were we actually running low on money?” Jeno asks as they head home. This is his favorite kind of weather, when he can feel the electric energy physically pulse in the air. The sky is that heady, blue-grey mix that hints at the beginning of a summer storm. He grins to himself.

“Not really,” Doyoung scrunches his face up in concentration and Jeno lets out a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t thought so, but having to entertain the thought of parting with his favorite cats had been a very trying time. 

“Then why did we rob the bank?”

Doyoung shrugs. “It’s the fastest way to get money, and they’d also just been caught up in an embezzlement scandal. I only took money from the officials’ accounts.”

“Wow, so noble.” Jeno stops walking to applaud, smiling brightly.

“Shut up,” Doyoung drawls. “It’s also because I caught Kun there a couple of days ago and wanted to snoop through his records.”

Jeno drops his hands. “And here I was, thinking that you’d changed your ways.”

“It was suspicious!”

“What, the city’s greatest superhero can’t make a deposit now?”

Doyoung wags a finger at him reproachfully. “His records showed no activity in the past few months, which means that he was there for something else.”

“Or Chenle’s just paying for everything.”

“Shouldn’t Kun have more of a conscience than to let the kid pay?”

Jeno frowns. “You’re such a hypocrite, why don’t you think like this when we go out to eat samgyeopsal?”

“Well. That’s different.”

“How?”

Jeno never gets to hear what elaborate excuse Doyoung manages to come up with, because at that moment the sky rumbles threateningly and seconds later, fat raindrops are pouring down their faces, splattering loudly as they meet their dismal fate on the concrete.

Doyoung shoots him a dirty look. “You couldn’t have warned me?”

Jeno smiles innocently. “In my defense, the energy in Seoul’s been kinda wonky these past few days.”

Truthfully, Jeno _was_ able to feel the storm coming. But he also wasn’t lying when he said that he’s been struggling to discern Seoul’s energy field. Ever since the lightning strikes first started, Jeno’s felt a little… numb. Thawed out. Like someone’s reached inside of him and cranked the energy setting down just a few too many notches. Electricity still fizzles at his fingertips, still dances along his spine and shoots out of his hands when need be. But it’s been getting more and more difficult to control. _Power is all about the give and take,_ Doyoung had told him back when they’d first started out as a team. Yet it feels like all he’s been doing is giving.

Personally, he’s always thought of his superpower more along the lines of cause and effect—the cause being lightning, the effect being thunder.

Jeno looks up to the sky, listening to the trees around them rattle in time to the claps of thunder.

But there isn’t a single strike of lightning.

-

Jeno wakes up the next morning to the sound of eggs being flipped in a pan. He sniffs deeply, eyes shut, and smiles. He’s absolutely _starving._

He’s halfway out the door before he realizes that Doyoung would never be up this early on a Sunday.

When Jeno reaches the kitchen, he finds the same boy from days ago standing at the stove, spatula cast aside as he grips the pan. Jeno can’t help it—he screams.

“What is wrong with you?” The guy yells, having jumped so high that he’d accidentally dented the pan by banging it on the stove. “Look, now the eggs are ruined.”

They are indeed. Jeno’s stomach rumbles sadly in mourning.

“Uh, sorry,” he says. And then his eyes widen, because that was _not_ his voice. 

“What are you doing?”

Jeno ignores the boy in favor of scrambling to the bathroom. “Oh my god,” he says, as he comes face to face with _nana <3._ Problem _not_ solved.

“Why do you keep saying that?” The boy says, having followed Jeno into the bathroom. “I seriously don’t understand what’s up with you these days. Sometimes you’re totally normal but then you’ll do things like say ‘oh my god’ and scream and stare at your face—actually, that’s kind of normal—”

“Ha ha,” Jeno laughs, trying to flash a smile to diffuse the tension. Judging by the glare the other guy’s sending him, it isn’t working.

The guy squints. “Hold on, does this mean what you were saying the other day was true?”

“What?”

“Are you really Jaemin?” 

So _that’s_ his name.

“Quick, tell me what I did back in preschool when I wanted to be friends with you—which was the worst decision of my life, by the way.”

“Um,” Jeno stutters, trying to buy himself time. The boy is starting to look subtly threatening. Jeno inches away nonchalantly. “You told me you wanted to be my friend?”

The boy makes a buzzer sound. “I stole your shoes and threw them onto the roof.”

Jeno frowns. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“Holy shit, you’re really not Jaemin.” The boy runs a hand through his hair, sitting down on the couch in disbelief. “He was telling the truth when he said that he switched bodies.”

Jeno stares blankly in response, not sure whether to confirm or deny.

“But why?” The boy paces around the room, face still scrunched in confusion. “It’s not like he’s ever had any superpowers, or anything.” He whips his head toward Jeno. “Or is this all an elaborate prank?”

Jeno opens his mouth, ready to defend himself, but the other guy’s already turning away from him. “Nah,” he shakes his head, “Jaemin’s not smart enough to think of something like this.”

“So you must be Renjun,” Jeno ventures hesitantly, grinning slightly when the boy’s head snaps up in surprise.

“He told you my name?”

“Kind of,” Jeno winces.

Speaking of which, where’s the phone?

Jeno runs back to the bedroom and—there! Already the screen is lighting up with notifications.

 **from: _dotori!_**  
omg u missed me already?

 **from: _dotori!_**  
i missed u too hehe don’t worry

 **from: _dotori!_**  
also u have a rly nice body

 **from: _dotori!_**  
and a rly big dick

 **from: _dotori!_**  
still not bigger than mine tho B)

 **to: _dotori!_**  
HEY DON’T LOOK AT IT

 **from: _dotori!_**  
omg u responded!!!!!!!!!!!!

 **from: _dotori!_**  
<3333333333

 **from: _dotori!_**  
so i need to talk abt dick to keep u interested huh

 **from: _dotori!_**  
noted

 **to: _dotori!_**  
NO oh my god

 **to: _dotori!_**  
look can u just meet me at the coffee shop closest to u

 **to: _dotori!_**  
we need to talk

 **from: _dotori!_**  
ooooooooh

 **to: _dotori!_**  
NOT LIKE THAT

-

“This is the worst day of my life,” Jeno stresses, sinking down further into his seat. 

After much squabbling over the concept of personal boundaries and basic privacy (Jeno can’t believe that this was a discussion they even needed to _have_ ) they’re stuck sitting at the furthest table away from the door. Jeno is pointedly refusing to look at Jaemin, who is violating his digestive system by quite literally vacuuming an americano into his mouth. Gross.

“Well that sucks,” Jaemin says, not looking sympathetic in the slightest. “I, on the other hand, am having a splendid time. I always did wonder what it’d be like to clone myself… do you think it’d be illegal if we made out? Like, incest? Wanna try?”

“Okay!” Jeno yelps, “we’re not doing this.” Jeno would _never_ let those words pass through his mouth. Unfortunately, he’s not the one in control of that right now. Jaemin looks like he’s ready to cut in with yet another innuendo, so Jeno hurries to add, “do you remember what you were doing right before you switched back?”

Jaemin shrugs. “I went to sleep.”

“Alright,” Jeno nods, “then let’s try that.”

“Sleeping? Seriously?” 

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“Plenty,” Jaemin drawls, and Jeno feels his throat go dry. He regrets asking, so much.

“Look,” Jeno sighs, “I don’t know why you keep treating this like a joke. Don’t you have things to do? Doesn’t this whole body switching thing make your life incredibly inconvenient too?”

Jaemin deflates instantly, eyes wide as he curls up into his chair. Fuck, Jeno can _feel_ himself melting. 

“Well yeah,” Jaemin says. His americano sits off to the side, temporarily untouched. “But I figured I’d have a little fun with it, you know? There’s no point in getting so worked up over things you can’t control. And also,” he admits, smiling shyly, “it’s kind of fun to rile you up.”

Jeno sucks in a breath. It’s absolutely unfair how quickly Jaemin can get him to flip flop between intense annoyance and intense weakness, even while being trapped in _his_ body. The smile that Jaemin flashes at him is blinding, and for a split second Jeno wonders if he’s attracted to Jaemin or himself. He shakes that thought away quickly. Jaemin is seriously rubbing off on him, and not for the better.

“Okay,” he says, head in his hands, “let’s just go back to my place and… sleep.”

“Sleep?” He can _hear_ the smirk in Jaemin’s voice.

Jeno gets up from the table and rolls his eyes at Jaemin. “Sleep.”

-

There’s a habit Jeno’s gotten into, ever since the first lightning strike. Whenever he can’t fall asleep, whether it be because of nightmares or Doyoung’s snoring or Seoul summers causing his hair to stick flat to his forehead, he listens for the sound of electricity in the air. Sometimes it comes in the form of a thunderstorm, hovering on the brink of the near future, but more often than not it’s the mechanical whir of the power lines running through his walls that serves as his lullaby for the night.

Jeno strains his ears desperately before flopping back onto the bed with a groan, sweat pooling on the slope of his nose. Curse Jaemin and his useless skin prison.

He doesn’t want to bother Doyoung about it because the _surprise! we switched bodies_ conversation had already been hard enough. That leaves him with one choice.

“Jaemin,” he calls softly, trudging to the living room.

“Hmm?”

Jeno watches himself sit up on the sofa—which is still weird, no matter how many times he sees it. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Jaemin must be more tired than Jeno thought, because he doesn’t comment on the innuendo that even Jeno’s pieced together. “Sure,” he murmurs and waves a hand at Jeno, beckoning him over. 

It’s the best he’s slept in months.

-

“It didn’t work,” Jeno gasps, sprawled in front of the mirror. No matter how many times he splashes water onto his face and goes to check, praying that he’ll open his eyes and be himself again, all he has to show for his efforts is Jaemin’s reflection staring back at him mockingly. “Why didn’t it work?”

“Maybe we’re soulmates,” Jaemin hums from below Jeno, where he’s searching the cabinet for a spare toothbrush. “Like in that Japanese movie? The one where they switch bodies because of some string thing and then the guy wakes up with boobs and can’t get enough of them so he—”

He tunes Jaemin out and turns back to the mirror. He’s ready to _smash_ the damn thing.

Jeno may have his own moral qualms about the role he plays in aiding and abetting Doyoung’s fervent hard-on for all things Kun-related, but at least it’s given him some kind of outlet for the excess energy trapped in his body. Even if he’s not always particularly fond of his superpower, he’d rather have it than not. Being in Jaemin’s body feels like he’s on suppressants all the time—everything static, everything empty. 

Not to mention, it makes things extraordinarily awkward when Jaemin, having successfully acquired a toothbrush, turns to Jeno whilst foaming at the mouth and asks, “Hey, do you do drugs?”

“No!” 

“Whoa, no offense intended.” Jaemin makes a face at him and goes back to brushing his teeth. “I was just wondering, since, you know, being you makes me feel like I’m high all the time.”

“ _You_ do drugs?” Jeno asks, affronted when Jaemin nods.

“I’m a dealer. Why, is that a problem?”

 _Yes,_ Jeno thinks emphatically, staring at Jaemin in disbelief. Any kind of mix between substances and superpowers is a recipe for disaster—it’s the first thing that everyone learns as a Super. Because powers should manifest directly from birth and are usually a part of your body the same way that your heart and lungs and skeleton are, anything that messes with your internal systems could wreak havoc with your powers as well. Jeno’s witnessed it firsthand—one time on their way back from a mission he and Doyoung had watched as a bar fight turned nasty. Jeno peeked out from behind the hand that Doyoung had hastily slapped over his eyes as people physically burst open in front of him—the result of water manipulation changing into _blood_ —and shut his eyes quickly. Two unconscious, four dead. It’s the only time he’s seen Doyoung call the police.

No Super is ever eager to advertise this fact—what, all it takes to knock out the fearless defender of the city is a blunt?—so Jeno needs to approach this carefully. If Jaemin ever smokes as him… 

Jeno shudders thinking about it.

“If you’re the dealer then why do you do it yourself?” He says, trying for unimpressed but shaking all the while. “Doesn’t that take away from sales?”

Jaemin shrugs. “It’s fun. Kills time.”

“Okay,” Jeno exhales noisily, “but could you not do it while you’re me?”

“I mean, if you really don’t want me to—”

“And don’t smoke, or drink?”

Jaemin stares at him. “What is this, bible camp?”

“Doyoung’s… strict with me.”

“Okay, killjoy,” Jaemin mutters, more exasperated than angry, but drops the matter nonetheless. Jeno lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Jaemin smiles at him then, unaware of the spot of toothpaste dabbed onto his nose. It’s the kind of smile that Jeno wants to steal off of Jaemin’s face and tuck into his pocket for safekeeping, so that he can pull it out whenever his power fizzles out miserably, or whenever he scores badly on a quiz, or whenever he has another nightmare about his parents, and that thought scares him more than he’d like to admit.

He needs to stop thinking too much.

-

“I’m heading out soon,” Jaemin hollers, having found Jeno sprawled in front of his laptop after a considerable amount of searching. “Thanks for letting me crash!”

Jeno waves him off with a hand, not bothering to tear his eyes away from the screen. “No problem!”

“Ahem.”

Jeno keeps watching. 

“Ahem!”

“What?” He groans, slightly put-out as he tugs a headphone loose. Doyoung’s standing in his doorway, arms crossed, as if Jeno suddenly knew how to read minds. (Not many people can—mind reading is rather rare.)

Doyoung makes a little coughing sound and tilts his head to the door. Jeno follows the motion to see Jaemin stuffing his pajamas into his bag. 

“Huh?”

“You need to go after Jaemin,” Doyoung whispers.

“Why do I need to go after Jaemin?” Jeno asks, not bothering to hide his confusion.

Doyoung bangs his head against the doorway, which shudders and cracks. When Jeno turns to check, Jaemin is staring at them, a little alarmed.

“Because of the,” Doyoung lowers his voice, “you know.”

“No,” Jeno shakes his head, “I don’t know. What do I need to go after him for?”

Doyoung sucks in a breath and holds it, which makes him look kind of like a pufferfish, if pufferfish could split the ground open with a stomp of their foot—except they don’t have feet. If they could split the ground open with their fins?

By the time Jeno snaps back to attention, Doyoung’s already shut the door.

“How the hell are we supposed to track Kun down if you won’t even be yourself half of the time?”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”

After realizing that sleeping it off wasn’t going to work, they’d decided to call it a day. Maybe Jeno fainting at the same time Jaemin had gone to bed was only a coincidence—fainting wasn’t even the same thing as sleeping, right? And he’s sure as hell not about to let Jaemin knock him out in the name of science. 

“What if you two switch while we’re out? What if he finds out who we really are and blabs to everyone? Jeno, we know nothing about this guy.”

“But he’s harmless!”

“How do you know?”

Jeno splutters for a bit. Doyoung gives him a look, like, _told you so._

“He’s just a student,” Jeno groans, “I seriously doubt that he was purposefully put in our lives to cause chaos—”

“You’re a student too,” Doyoung shrugs. “You never know.”

Jeno huffs, blowing his bangs off of his forehead. “Then what do you propose I do, oh Wise One?”

“I don’t know,” Doyoung admits. “But I don’t like that we’re… just leaving it unresolved.”

A small part of Jeno softens at the implication that this isn’t just his problem to deal with. “How about this,” he suggests, “I convince Jaemin to stay with us while we’re figuring this out? That way you can keep an eye on him and I can rest easier knowing that I won’t have to face Renjun again.”

“Who?”

Jeno shakes his head. “Never mind. But, deal?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this.” Doyoung pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Yeah?”

“…Yeah, okay.”

-

Jeno doesn’t want to admit it, but Doyoung has a point.

Back when Jeno was still going to school, Doyoung would pick him up after class and they’d walk home together, winding through crowded streets and smog for the better part of an hour so that Doyoung could get his steps in.

It’d also been the first time that Jeno’s powers had gone haywire on him—one minute he’d been dodging under Doyoung’s arm, the next minute every single tree lining the street they’d been walking on had been set ablaze.

“Come on,” Doyoung had said, “Now? In broad daylight? Can’t you have a little more tact than that?”

Jeno had simply shrugged and made a run for it. If he’d been lucky, no one would realize that the fires had come from him, and then maybe he wouldn’t have had to watch a poorly-drawn version of himself edited into a mugshot on the 6 o’clock news the next day. After all, burning trees could easily be chalked up to leftover debris from yet another superpowered fight.

But the world was nothing if not predictable, even if it was for the sole purpose of counteracting the amount of chaos that Jeno’s misbehaving superpower brings to the cosmic table of the universe. Jeno had reluctantly resigned himself to another evening of watching himself (or rather, a badly parodied version of himself that completely glossed over his best traits, like the hair and the eyes and the tragic backstory) nab another fifteen minutes of fame.

“They didn’t even get your nose right,” Doyoung had huffed in distaste, watching as yet another garishly-colored imposter danced its way across the screen.

Not like they’d had much to work off of—Doyoung makes him wear a face mask whenever he goes out—but Jeno had looked up from where he’d refilled the popcorn bowl and laughed anyway. Moments like those had made him think that the whole supervillain thing wasn’t so bad after all.

It wasn’t a secret that Jeno was more than a little reluctant about leading a life of evil. When the lightning had first taken root in his body, he’d wanted to use his powers for good. But in the end he’d lost the choice. To be a superhero you needed the paperwork, and there was nothing Jeno could do about being unregistered. It’d been as simple as that.

“Being a superhero isn’t all that it’s chalked up to be,” Doyoung had said to him in between an action sequence of Television-Jeno dive-bombing into a sports car and a fire safety infomercial.

Jeno had thought back to the time that they’d trailed Kun home from a fight only to find that a horde of fangirls had beat them to the chase. Jeno had caught a glimpse of Chenle’s panicked face through the windows and felt himself wince in sympathy. Once you drape a cape around your neck, the world suddenly doesn’t know how to let you go.

According to Doyoung, Jeno’s biggest asset (because the whole “getting your ass handed to you by your own supposed superpower” schtick really isn’t doing either of them any favors) is his anonymity. That’d usually be the part where Jeno cracked some lame joke, like, _wow hyung, didn’t think you had it in you to be an optimist!_ But Doyoung had been uncharacteristically serious. “I know it might not feel like it now, but you’re actually really lucky that you’re unregistered.”

Seriously? Lucky? Jeno’s beat the 1 in 700,000 odds of getting struck by lighting all too many times to know what that word means. He’d opened his mouth to tell Doyoung that there was nothing _lucky_ about getting your metaphorical ozone-infused period on the daily, but Doyoung had cut him off before he could start.

“If you ever decide that you want to stop all of this, you know, superpower stuff, you can. No one would ever know that it happened, aside from me.” Doyoung had smiled at him then, a little ruefully. “A lot of people would kill to be in your position.”

“Really?”

“More than you’d think.”

Doyoung had dropped the topic then and began drafting a scathing email to their local news station regarding their poor taste in animation studios, but Jeno hadn’t been able to get the words out of his mind.

If Jaemin ever tells anyone about how he and Doyoung pay the bills, then Jeno doesn’t even get the chance to consider a civilian life.

And he doesn’t want to lose another choice.

-

Jeno doesn’t know how it happens, but slowly, Jaemin becomes a part of his routine:

1) “Not again,” Jeno groans, throwing his head back onto his pillow.

“I’m sorry!” Jaemin pouts miserably from where he’s standing by the door. “I really tried this time!”

When Jaemin moved in Jeno had taken the couch, shooting down Jaemin’s insistent refusal by arguing that he got to stay home all day anyway, so he could use his room when Jaemin was in class. Jaemin had reluctantly agreed, and that was that.

But neither of them considered that their track record of switching bodies wherever, whenever, and for no apparent reason meant that it didn’t matter where they slept. More often than not Jeno wakes up back in his own room, having been startled awake by Jaemin creeping in and scurrying about.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault that I’m a light sleeper.” Jeno sighs and closes his eyes, despite knowing that he’s not going to be able to fall back asleep. “Why don’t we try… sleeping in the same room?”

Jaemin gives him a look. “In here? Jeno, no offense, but your room isn’t that big.”

“I can probably fit a sleeping bag in, if I tried—”

“Or why don’t we just share the bed?”

Jeno sits up and stares. Jaemin’s too busy adjusting his snapback in the mirror to look at him, but Jeno needs to double-check.

“What?”

“I said we could share,” Jaemin turns around. “It’s big enough, right?”

“I guess,” Jeno admits uneasily.

“Great! Glad we figured that out.” Jaemin beams at him, grabs his backpack, and turns to leave. “Have a nice day, Jeno!”

“You too,” he returns blankly, and then Jaemin’s gone. 

2) Jaemin is incredibly noisy. He hums while doing homework, blasts music in the shower, can’t stop muttering in his sleep, and, worst of all, talks during movies.

“This is the part I was telling you about! See, isn’t it funny? God, can you imagine what it’d be like to be a girl—”

“Jaemin,” Jeno cuts in, hitting pause on _Kimi no na wa_ for the nth time. They’re barely ten minutes into the movie. “I can’t read the damn subtitles if you keep talking my ear off.”

“Sorry,” Jaemin says, not looking sorry at all. Jeno sighs and hits play.

Two blissful, quiet minutes pass.

“No, but really, thank god you’re a guy—”

“Oh my _god_.”

3) To both Jeno and Doyoung’s amazement, Jaemin is a really good cook.

Jeno’s amazement isn’t all that surprising—he has only just recently mastered the very important, highly advanced culinary skill of cracking an egg into his ramen—but Doyoung can actually cook too, and he gave Jaemin the stamp of approval the first time Jaemin whipped up yukhoe bibimbap for them.

“Wow,” Jeno moaned, mouth still caught around his spoon. “This is so good.”

Doyoung turned around to give Jaemin a gaze of grudging respect. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

“My mom made me learn before I left for school.”

“I don’t care where he learnt as long as I can have seconds,” Jeno warbled, downing a glass of water. “Can I?”

Jaemin snickered but held a hand out for Jeno’s bowl anyway. “Sure.”

4) “Can I tag along with you?”

Jeno turns back and squints. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Jaemin shrugged brightly, already slipping into his shoes. “I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

“Suit yourself.”

Jeno’s more than a little giddy at the prospect of Jaemin joining him. This is how he’ll determine how trustworthy Jaemin truly is—the cat cafe test. Simple but effective, the test involves Jeno coaxing Bongsik out of the cat tree in the corner that she’s fond of curling up in and seeing whether or not she’ll let Jaemin pet her. If Bongsik likes Jaemin, then so will Jeno.

“You never told me that you liked cats,” Jaemin marvels, walking into the cafe tentatively after Jeno.

“Like,” Jeno corrects. “I like cats.”

Jaemin holds his hands up in surrender. “Got it.”

“This one’s my favorite,” Jeno smiles, watching Bongsik preen in front of Jaemin. “She likes getting scratched behind the ears.”

“Aren’t you not supposed to have favorites?” Jaemin quips, but obediently starts making his way to Bongsik, who snarls in response.

Jeno feels his stomach drop. _Come on,_ he thinks, staring directly into Bongsik’s eyes in hopes of her coming around. _Just this once?_

Bongsik gives him a look, like, _really?_ but nevertheless trudges forward to Jaemin, who delightedly reaches out for her.

“She likes me!”

“Yeah,” Jeno smiles, fond. “She does.”

-

Unfortunately, Jeno has been so caught up in dealing with all things Jaemin that he’d completely forgotten about the other end of the deal that he’d struck with Doyoung.

As a result of Jaemin moving in, Doyoung had banned Jeno from using his powers _and_ from joining any missions entirely until they somehow managed to figure out how to keep the body switching thing in check.

(“It’s a safety measure,” Doyoung had said. “For your own good!”

“You’re putting me on _house arrest_ ,” Jeno had shot back.)

But there’s no use arguing. If Doyoung’s determined to keep Jeno on metaphorical power suppressants, then to get off of them, Jeno simply has to find a way to stop switching with Jaemin.

So, he drags Jaemin to the library.

“You don’t even go to real school,” Jaemin groans, physically dragging his feet along the carpet. “Why are you suddenly so eager to study?”

“Online school _is_ real school,” Jeno shoots back. “I’ll have you know that I’ve made more friends on there than you probably have in your entire life.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin snorts, “and have you ever met them?”

Jeno chooses not to dignify that with an answer.

“ _Anyway,_ we’ve still made zero progress on figuring out how to stop switching. I figured there was no harm in checking if the library had anything.”

“About body switching?” Jaemin shoots him a look, incredulous. “Yeah, maybe, if it were a superpower, but that’s clearly not the case for us. Right?”

Jeno stiffens. He’d never thought about that before, but Jaemin’s right. On Jeno’s part at least, the day before they’d first switched he’d been struck by the strongest lightning bolt of his life. And he’s been struck by a lot of lightning bolts.

“No, I don’t think that’s it.” Jeno says, doing his best to keep the tremor in his voice under control. “But I’ll go see if I can find anything on it anyway?”

“Okay, I’ll help!”

“Ah, I don’t really need—”

“You’re going to single-handedly check all of these shelves,” Jaemin deadpans, sweeping an arm at the hallway lying before them. Jeno’s eyes widen. Sorting through all of those books would take forever—at times like this, he really regrets not having super speed as his power.

But he doesn’t have any other option.

“Okay,” he grunts. “You can help.”

-

Six hours later, they’ve managed to clear out four shelves each, leaving them with a grand total of approximately a million more shelves to sort through.

“This is impossible,” Jaemin flops onto a beanbag chair, ignoring the glare from the librarian. “So what if we stay like this forever? I don’t mind.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.”

“Okay, yeah.” Jaemin rolls over and finds Jeno sitting cross-legged on the floor, flipping through page after page after page of nothing. “No offense, but I still think you do drugs. It just feels so _weird_ to be you.”

“Yeah?”

“Like, you have so much energy? But you’re always so calm. I don’t understand where it all goes. Do you secretly let it out when you’re back in your own body or something?”

Jeno’s eyes widen. Jaemin has no idea how close he is to the truth. “No,” he stutters. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never done drugs.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jaemin rolls his eyes. “Look, I can even give you a bag for free if you want to just try a little. It’ll be harmless, I promise.”

“No!” Jeno hisses, grip tightening around the book.

“Okay, yeesh.”

Jeno turns back to the bookcases. The library closes in two hours, and Jeno wants to finish the shelf he’s working on at least.

“This is going nowhere,” Jaemin moans. “Why don’t we try something else?”

“Like what?”

“Like… an all-nighter!” 

Jeno stares blankly at him.

“Well, we always switch at night, right? So what if we just didn’t sleep?”

“That’s not sustainable at all.”

“We should at least try it! We tried your dumb sleeping idea—”

“This is all just a ploy to get me to start drinking coffee, isn’t it?” Jeno makes a face. “Well, just to spite you, I will _never_ drink coffee. Who knows what damage you’ve already done to my immune system with your eight espresso shots? I’m onto you, Na Jaemin.”

“No, I really just want to try—”

“Excuse me.”

Jeno looks up and comes face to face with the librarian from before, who looks more than a little disgruntled.

“I’m going to have to ask you two to leave. You’re disturbing the other patrons.”

“Yes, of course!” Jeno flashes a smile, hoping to diffuse the situation. Jaemin raises an eyebrow at him, clearly unimpressed. Not that Jeno’s paying attention.

“This is all your fault,” Jeno moans when they’re on the sidewalk, “if you hadn’t been so _insistent—_ ”

Jaemin scoffs. “My fault? You’re the one who came up with a whole conspiracy theory about my coffee agenda.”

“It’s horrible!”

“But if you’d just agreed to try the all-nighter then we wouldn’t be stuck here now.” Jaemin stops walking to cross his arms dramatically.

“You’re so dumb,” Jeno rolls his eyes, “it wouldn’t matter if we pulled an all-nighter because we’d have to sleep at some point anyway, so the switch would just happen then.”

“How do you know?” Jaemin puffs out his chest, overly brash, but Jeno can see his mind racing.

“Logic.”

Jaemin deflates. “Okay fine. You win. Let’s just go home.”

Home. With Jeno and Doyoung.

Jaemin doesn’t say anything else after that, but he doesn’t need to. The butterflies in Jeno’s stomach are more than enough to keep him company on the way home.

-

“I’m gonna make a temporary exception,” Doyoung says, ambushing Jeno when he’d stepped outside after his shower. “I don’t like it, but I think in this case it’s necessary.”

“Huh?”

“I’m reinstating you,” Doyoung clarifies. “Like, you’re back in! Congrats!”

 _Back in what,_ Jeno’s about to ask, before he catches Doyoung’s panicked glance as Jaemin rounds the corner and realizes. _Missions._

“Are you two… okay?”

“Yeah,” Doyoung chirps. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Uh.” Jaemin scratches the back of his head. “I don’t know.”

“Then run along,” Doyoung smiles, before spinning back around to face Jeno. “Kun has a document that I need,” he whispers, “but I can’t get it by myself.”

“Ah,” Jeno smirks, leaning against the wall. “So _now_ you need me.”

“Jeno,” Doyoung says warningly, but Jeno knows better than to take him seriously.

“Uh huh, I don’t want to hear it. You come begging now, after _weeks,_ all for some document?”

“This one’s important.”

“That’s what you say about all of them.”

“No, really,” Doyoung says, and something in his voice makes Jeno tilt his head, considering.

This may come as a surprise, but Jeno himself isn’t quite sure why Doyoung’s so hellbent on seeing Kun fall from grace. Every time he’d asked, Doyoung had brushed him off with a vague _we have history_ until Jeno had dropped it, chalking it up as akin to wondering where subway cars went after the last stop. Soon enough, he’d stopped asking—there was no point when the answer was always the same.

But if Doyoung’s really that convinced that this document’s the one, then what can Jeno do but agree?

“Okay,” he says. “I’m in.”

-

After some flimsy excuse that Jaemin had thankfully bought, Jeno finds himself on the streets of Seoul at night for the first time in what feels like years. In reality, it’s only been a little over a month, but Jeno sucks the air into his lungs like he’s never tasted it anyway, trying to digest as much as he can. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this.

“You sure you know what to do?”

“I got it,” Jeno rolls his eyes. “A month out of action didn’t suddenly turn me into an _amateur_.”

“I just want to make sure!”

“Isn’t it a little late to do that?”

“Maybe by your standards, but—”

“Can we start now?” Jeno cuts in, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “We don’t have all day.”

Doyoung shakes his head, looking a little pinched, but doesn’t bother trying to argue back.

“Just—remember to be careful. Kun’s a light sleeper.”

“How do you know? Wait, don’t tell me,” Jeno shakes his head. “You guys have _history_.”

Doyoung glares at him, a little blinding, and suddenly he’s prying the building apart, brick and mortar crumbling before Jeno’s eyes. When the dust clears, there’s a gaping hole. 

Jeno whirls around to face Doyoung, who is resolutely looking forward. “I thought you said to be quiet,” he hisses.

Doyoung shrugs. “I changed my mind.”

“You take the whole ‘first impression’ thing seriously, huh?”

Jeno peers through the hole in the wall. Kun stands in Rilakkuma boxers, arms crossed, looking faintly disappointed, and Jeno almost wonders what he did wrong until he remembers that that’s just Kun’s default expression.

“It’s hard to get your attention otherwise,” Doyoung shrugs.

Jeno averts his eyes. He’s not sure what they’re talking about, but he knows that asking now won’t do him any good. Instead, he busies himself by scanning the surrounding area, taking note of anything vaguely similar to the description that Doyoung had given him before they’d set out.

_We’re looking for a manila folder. Pretty thick. An entire person’s life is stored in there. You should be able to find a photo of them too, somewhere on the first page._

Jeno darts a look between Doyoung and Kun, who are both too busy staring each other down to pay much attention to him. That takes care of one person at least, but he still has to keep an eye out for Chenle, who’s quick and agile and most importantly, entirely unknown.

That’s the secret to Kun’s reign as Seoul’s representative superhero. Despite not even being Korean, Kun’s held that title for over seven years. And more often than not it’s really because of Chenle rather than Kun. Kun’s superpower, air manipulation, is handy enough in superhero work, but it can’t hold a candle to Chenle’s. Jeno’s not exactly sure—no one is—about _what_ Chenle’s superpower is exactly, but he knows that it’s powerful, and he knows that he’s never seen anything like it before. 

With one accurately-placed blast, Jeno could send the file flying straight his way, and once he’d grabbed it out of the air they’d be on their way. Simple as that. Jeno flexes his fingers a few times, waiting for the fire to start crackling in the base of his spine. A coldness seeps through his body. When he blinks, he sees blue.

As soon as Doyoung gives him the signal, Jeno will let the bolt go. He waits, letting the power gather in his hands, before, in a burst of motion—

Jeno shuts his eyes as the light explodes into the room.

When he opens them he jolts, disoriented. He’s back in their apartment.

Almost on habit, Jeno checks for the circuit running in his body. He startles as he comes up empty. _No way,_ he thinks, trying again, but still getting only dead air in response. 

Jeno rushes to the mirror, as if the lack of electricity thumping in his brain wasn’t enough of a giveaway. Jaemin’s face stares back at him. 

They’d switched while Jeno was wide awake.

-

(“Doyoung? What are you doing here?”

“Uh, we came here together? Are you okay, Jeno?”

“But I’m Jaemin?”

“Oh… wait, what?”

“Oh my god, I had no idea you were friends with a superhero!”

“Whoa, we are _not_ friends—”

“But weren’t you and Jeno supposed to be adopting a cat?”)

-

Jeno paces back and forth in front of the television, ignoring Jaemin’s noises of complaint as he blocks whatever Mario game was on screen. 

“You know what this means?”

“That I’m losing?” Jaemin huffs and restarts the game.

“No,” Jeno drawls, “that your all-nighter idea really was dumb because we switched while we were _awake._ ”

“Don’t know what you just said, don’t particularly care.”

“Which means we’re back at square one,” Jeno huffs, slumping down onto the couch. “I just wish I knew why this was happening.”

“Maybe we should just make the best of it,” Jaemin suggests. “Team up. Become a duo. The… Body-swapping Twins!”

Jeno crinkles his nose. “That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t my best work. Give me a second and I’ll come up with something better.”

“We’d be such a lame duo—what would we even do? Prank people? How is that going to save the day?”

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to save the day to be a superhero, Jeno.”

“Yeah?” Jeno laughs. “Tell that to everyone else in this city.”

Because at the end of the day, Jeno knows that the only difference between a superhero and supervillain is their theme music. But no one else does.

-

“Kun wants to meet up,” Doyoung says to him the next day, dropping the manila file next to Jeno’s congee.

“Watch it!” Jeno snaps, and moves his bowl out of the way.

“I don’t get it.” Doyoung frowns. “After all these years, why would he want to meet up? Isn’t this a trap?”

Jeno shrugs. “Maybe. When did he say that he wants to meet?”

Doyoung points a finger at the file. Jeno flips it open and finds a post-it stuck to the inside of the cover, which reads, _Can we talk? No powers, just words. I’ll be at our old compound at 9 tomorrow._

“This is a trap, right? I’m not being paranoid.”

“You’re not,” Jeno reassures him half-heartedly. He’s more interested in peering closer at the contents of the file, eyes automatically zooming in on the photo clipped to the top of the page.

“What kind of name is Ten?”

“Not his real one,” Doyoung says, snatching the file before Jeno can read any more. 

Jeno shrugs, even though he’s secretly burning up with curiosity inside. “Okay, keep your secrets.” 

“Do you think we should go?”

“We?”

“I don’t trust him.” Doyoung says, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Everything feels too easy. When we went after the file, Chenle didn’t even show up to help. And there’s no way he slept through that explosion.”

“You’re saying this is a set-up,” Jeno nods in understanding.

“Exactly.”

“I don’t see how we’ll get any answers if we don’t go though,” Jeno frowns, shifting subtly closer to the file, which now rests in Doyoung’s hands.

Doyoung deflates. “I know.”

“So… we’re going?”

“I guess we have to. There’s just no other way to—hey, give that back!”

-

The old compound turns out to be a series of buildings, all bearing vague resemblances to the kinds of architecture Jeno might see on, say, an abandoned hospital, or those radioactive power plants that feature heavily on the news. The countryside spreads out before them, an open swath of forest and field that stretches as far as he can see. Jeno immediately starts plugging into himself and listens for the familiar hum of the circuitry within him.

Kun’s already waiting for them when they step out of the car. 

“I thought we said no superpowers,” Kun indicates Jeno with a tilt of his head, lips pressed together. “I didn’t bring Chenle.”

“What makes you think I’d listen to you?” Doyoung retorts.

Kun looks over at Jeno, who’s now glowing blue, but leaves him be. “You really haven’t changed at all, huh?”

Doyoung doesn’t respond, but his gaze is steely. 

“I just came here to apologize,” Kun begins, but Doyoung’s already turning around and walking away. Jeno starts to power himself off in response.

Before they can get anywhere, the air around them begins churning furiously, dust whipping into their eyes. Jeno tries moving toward the car but gives up when his legs ache in complaint. He’s stuck taking shaky steps, one after another, but moving nowhere. Like an invisible treadmill.

Doyoung whips his head around. “I thought you said no powers.”

“You wouldn’t listen to me.”

“For good reason,” Doyoung grunts, and that’s all the warning he gives before he rips the earth apart.

Jeno’s never seen the full extent of Doyoung’s superpowers before, but he knows that they’re strong. There’s a reason Doyoung’s managed to cement his position as the city’s supervillain despite only racking up charges of _didn’t pay his taxes in full_ and _broke into an Apple store to replace his phone._ Jeno wasn’t around for when Doyoung was still new on the scene, fresh-faced, beady-eyed, surrounded by what seemed like a million other Supers, all vying for the few positions available. Not everyone gets to be a superhero, or even a supervillain. It all comes down to power.

Power, that Jeno quickly realizes, both Kun and Doyoung have. The first thing that Doyoung does is carve a chasm between them, before rapidly pulling the flying debris to form a wall around himself and Jeno. 

Kun pushes back with blasts of pressure, highly-concentrated tornados that sail in through the cracks of their makeshift armor to rip gashes into their skin.

Doyoung grits his teeth, sealing each crack as they form, but Jeno can tell that the rapid repair effort is taking its toll on him. The chasm is already closing, Kun growing closer and closer to them with each second—Doyoung can’t attack and defend at the same time.

But, if given enough time, Jeno can.

“You still don’t want to hear me out?”

“No!” Doyoung hollers, pressing forcefully against the rock wall in front of them.

“You’re so stubborn,” Kun calls back.

“I prefer determined!”

Jeno tunes them out, focusing on upping the voltage running inside of him. If he can manage to generate enough electricity, he can shut Kun down completely. His skin sparks to life, blue forks zigzagging across his body as his veins light up. Jeno pulls every ounce of electricity he can find into his right hand. Around him, the air flares with energy, crackling dangerously. 

Kun reels back momentarily. “What are you doing?”

Jeno doesn’t respond. Electricity courses inside of him like a tsunami. If he concentrates, he can feel each individual electron as it sparks dangerously from the tips of his fingers, like Jeno’s body isn’t enough to contain them. 

“Wow,” a voice says. Jeno makes out the sound of light applause. “And here I thought we’d matured since high school.”

Jeno yelps as Doyoung’s rock wall collapses suddenly, air stinging across his cheek like a lash.

“Ten?” Doyoung cries incredulously.

Jeno squints to make out Kun dropping to the ground, both he and Doyoung turning to stare at their newest guest, who smiles under all the attention.

“Well don’t let me get in the way of your spat,” the guy says, taking a step back.

The rest is lost to Jeno—he’s glowing so brightly now that he throws light all the way to the other end of the field that they’re standing in. The rush of power in him is starting to get to his head. Something feels off, like a plug jammed too tightly into its socket. The alarm in his head wails _SYSTEM OVERLOAD! SYSTEM OVERLOAD! SYSTEM OVERLOAD!_ He needs to do something, fast—

“Doyoung!” He shouts, “ it’s happening—”

“Again? Still no Evite post? That’s just _rude_ now—”

Jeno screams. In the distance, thunder crashes, a backing track of cymbals. Some kind of supernatural dam breaks inside of him, the power ripping loose like a hurricane set free, washing out the light Jeno had cast and wringing him out. Every nerve in his body explodes from the impact. 

And then, just as suddenly, the storm stills.

Jeno struggles to his feet, coughing. His entire body feels like it’s been rubbed raw, eaten whole by the eye of the hurricane. All that he’s left with now are the bones, fractured and crumbling. The sudden emptiness within him makes him sick.

He manages two steps before he hits the ground, out cold.

-

Jeno’s origin story, like any Super, is replete with tragedy.

When he was eight, he and his family had gone on a camping trip to the mountains, a three day getaway that slotted them in between a vast, open lake and a stretch of woods filled to the brim with little green tents, all identical to theirs.

Jeno was the only one who ever came back from that trip.

 _Freak accident,_ claimed the police, stamping the report neatly and shoving it into the bottom of a filing cabinet. _Nothing we could do for them … lightning came so fast … lucky you’re alive._

At the time, gaining electricity as a superpower had felt like a cosmic joke—he could now wield the very thing that had killed his parents, but only after they’d died? 

Jeno coped by pretending the accident had never happened. He spent months training himself to deal with the side effects of getting struck by lightning: squashing the electrical impulses when they came, ignoring the way his heart beat in time to the buzzing in his veins, purposefully checking the weather forecast each morning despite being able to smell storms coming six hours in advance.

But he hadn’t prepared himself for the sudden sense of righteousness that arose whenever he encountered danger. 

Lightning, upon making contact with the ground, leaves behind a blast strong enough to uproot the surrounding trees in a one mile radius. When paired with a careful aim, Jeno can harness that force to push cars apart before they crash, redirect the path of a collapsing building, and shove others out of harm’s way.

And he figured, if he has the capacity to help, then why not do it?

But Jeno’s visions of bravery and heroism came to an abrupt halt when he entered City Hall one day, glasses askew, papers clutched tightly in his hands.

“ID?”

Jeno slid his passport through the glass partition, shifting on his heels as he waited.

“Birth certificate?”

“Here.”

“I’m sorry,” the officer manning the window that day said, handing Jeno his birth certificate back, smirk on full display. “But you can’t become a superhero without a superpower.”

“I do have a superpower though,” Jeno frowned, peering down at his birth certificate.

The officer snorted. “In your dreams, maybe.”

“I do! I can show you, if you want.”

“Look, kid, you can drop the act. Everything I need to know is already written down right here.”

Jeno followed the officer’s finger to the document, underlining one line in particular: _POWERED: NO_

“But I am,” Jeno protested, staring in shock as a single _NO,_ proof that his powers had come about abnormally rather than having manifested since birth, barred him from joining training.

“Yeah? Prove it.”

Jeno has always considered himself level-headed. He preferred to let things go, not seeing much point in fighting until he got his way. But Jeno also gets fed-up sometimes. And he’d definitely been fed-up then. Lightning sparked along his skin, blue light illuminating the webbing of his scars.

The officer jerked back, instincts kicking in, but by then it was too late. The lightning sliced cleanly through the air, arcing from Jeno’s fingertips into the man’s heart, and that was that. Any chance he’d had at getting approved for Super training had now gone out the window.

The next thing Jeno remembers from that day was immediately getting mobbed, dozens of officers leaping from their stations to coral Jeno into stillness, pressing suppressants blindly against his mouth. It passed by in a blur—Jeno too caught up in the shock of having accidentally _killed_ someone to pay attention to his surroundings.

It was the first time he’d realized that lightning was naturally destructive.

“Hey,” a voice whispered, wrenching Jeno out of his thoughts. He followed the sound to find one of the officers standing at his door. “I can break you out, if you want.”

“Why would you do that?” Jeno whispered back.

The officer glanced around, name tag glinting as he does so— _DOYOUNG_ —before turning back to Jeno.

“I saw what you did.”

“Yeah?” 

“It wasn’t your fault. That’s too much power for anyone to handle—you couldn’t figure out how to control it.”

Jeno crossed his arms, keeping his face carefully blank. “And how do you know that?”

“Seen it happen before,” Doyoung shrugged, wincing when he glanced back at the others. “I don’t mean to pressure you or anything, but we’re kind of running on a schedule here. You want my help, or not?”

Jeno considered. On one hand, this was an absolute stranger. No one would go looking for him if he disappeared. 

On the other hand, he’d just lost any chance he had at joining training. This guy seemed to know what he was talking about. If Jeno convinced the guy to let him stick around, maybe even learn how to wrestle his power under control… 

“Okay,” Jeno whispered. “Let’s do it.”

From there, his origin story took a drastic turn for the better, all previous tragedies reduced to mere slivers of memories that Jeno only had to confront on the worst days. But the thought of hero work will always leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

-

The room that he wakes up in is blinding. Jeno squints, momentarily disoriented, before he realizes that he’s in a hospital.

“Jeno?”

He groans, rolling over on his side to face Doyoung. 

“Yeah?”

Doyoung takes his time answering, staring down at Jeno’s face. “You were out for a while.”

“How long?”

“Three days,” Kun cuts in, and Jeno jolts, brain still stuck in fighter mode.

“Why are you here?”

“Play nice,” Doyoung chides, “he’s the reason _you’re_ here.”

“I just called in a favor, I already said it wasn’t a big deal—”

“I refuse to be in your debt,” Doyoung huffs.

Jeno stares at the ceiling, unblinking. He’s never been in a hospital before, on account of his being unregistered. If someone were to play _find a match!_ between the circuit boards hardwired throughout his skeleton and the glaring red _POWERED: NO_ line on his birth certificate, Jeno would be tossed back into holding immediately.

“What happened, after I blacked out?”

Doyoung winces. “You blasted us with enough force to catapult us into the next town over.”

Jeno’s eyes widen.

“We’re fine,” Kun says, but Jeno catches sight of the casts that they both have on, and falls back onto the bed with a moan.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Doyoung cuts in, tone sharp. “You did nothing wrong.”

Jeno chooses to redirect the conversation instead of acknowledging those statements.

“Why are you two suddenly so friendly?”

“Ah,” Kun mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “We… talked. On our way to get you.”

Jeno raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“And… we worked some things out.”

They’re saved from further questioning by the nurse, who walks in with a clipboard in hand, but that doesn’t stop Jeno from giving Doyoung the _I’m-watching-you_ look.

“You expelled so much energy in the blast that it drained out all of the electricity in your system,” the nurse reads. “This means that your superpower is now inactive for the time being, and will very likely remain that way for the rest of your life. We believe that this happened because of the traces of alcohol found in your system, which indicate that you were drinking in the last 24 hours—”

Kun looks sharply at him, but Doyoung shakes his head and stops Kun with a hand on his arm. Jeno leans against the headboard, mouth agape. He hasn’t been drinking.

“We’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that superpowers and substances such as alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes cannot be combined, as they can lead to dangerous consequences. Such consequences may include nervousness, agitation, anxiety, insomnia, stomach pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, palpitations, headaches, psychosis, death—”

Jeno’s never drank a sip of alcohol in his entire life. But he knows someone who has.

-

“Na Jaemin,” he seethes, barreling through the front door.

“Jeno!” Jaemin exclaims, and if Jeno weren’t so caught up in chewing Jaemin out he might’ve noticed the undertone of relief that paints Jaemin’s voice.

“I told you not to do three things.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “No drugs, no drinking, and no cigarettes. Three things! Just three! So why on earth did you _drink_ as me?”

Jaemin stares at him, features pulled into an expression of confusion, before it morphs into something uglier. “Three things that are _completely normal_ to literally everyone else on this planet,” Jaemin hisses, “I drank a little bit after exams because I forgot, it was a careless mistake—”

“You shouldn’t have forgotten!” Jeno shouts, voice going a little shrill.

“Why not?” Jaemin challenges, scarily calm. “Give me one good reason why I should keep listening to you when you don’t fucking tell me anything.”

“I tell you things, what are you talking about—”

“No you don’t!” Jaemin explodes, “you and Doyoung go on some secret midnight escapade together—yeah, that’s right, I know about that—and then you up and disappear for _three days straight_ without so much as a word to me about why! I get that you never wanted this switching thing to happen,” he huffs, arms crossed. “Trust me, I didn’t either—but I’ve never been as stupidly vague as you are about literally every single thing that happens in your life.”

Jeno feels his vision go red. This is a bad idea, this is such a bad idea—

“You want to know that badly?” Jeno hisses, the bite in his voice clear. “Are you really that desperate?”

Jaemin’s eyes flash. “I’m not _desperate—_ ”

“We’re supervillains,” Jeno cuts in, silencing Jaemin with a glare. “And your _careless mistake_ just cost me my superpower.”

Jaemin opens his mouth, ready to retort, and suddenly Jeno feels so, so tired. Now he understands why Kun had asked Doyoung to talk.

“Forget it,” he mutters, ignoring the way that Jaemin’s frowning at him. “Just leave me alone.”

-

The next day, Jaemin’s gone.

“He moved out,” Doyoung announces over breakfast, crunching noisily on a bag of chips. “Said that you didn’t need him here anymore. Does this mean that the body switching finally stopped?”

“Yeah,” Jeno answers listlessly. “Sure.”

-

Jaemin slips out of Jeno’s life just as easily as he’d fallen into it, taking his awful innuendos and strawberry-scented body wash and hellish coffee habits with him as he goes.

As much as he hates to admit it, Jeno can see where Jaemin’s coming from. If their positions were reversed, Jeno would’ve been worried sick about Jaemin during those three days. The radio silence would’ve made him assume the worst. After his initial outburst his anger had dissipated rather quickly, eventually softening into a quiet kind of regret. That feeling balloons inside of him, moving into the crevices that Jeno’s electricity had once resided in, mechanical hum replaced with unsaid apologies.

Jeno’s briefly considered apologizing, but the loss of his superpower still hits him hard. He’s gotten so used to having all of that energy swirling around that he feels lethargic without it, movements grudging and slow. He feels like he’s just sawed off one of his limbs.

Even the body switching has stopped, as if Jeno losing his superpower had been a two for the price of one deal. 

He sighs and stares at Jaemin’s deformed frog plushie, which he’d stolen when the other wasn’t looking. With all that he’s already lost, he can’t afford to lose Jaemin too. Jeno sits up, reaches for his phone, and starts punching in Jaemin’s address.

-

Renjun’s the one who answers the door. Jeno’s so startled that he nearly turns and runs then, ready to abandon all hope and flee the country before it’s too late, but Renjun stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says, face devoid of any expression.

Jeno shudders. “Um, thanks?”

Renjun grins and drops the act, slamming the door shut behind Jeno. Well, there’s no way out now.

“I really have been waiting you know,” Renjun says, hanging Jeno’s coat up on the rack. “You took a lot longer than I expected.”

“I had some things to deal with,” Jeno answers carefully.

“Hey, I’m not asking for your emotional baggage.” Renjun shrugs, before looking at him closely, a little earnest when he says, “just be nice to Jaemin.”

Jeno stares at Renjun a beat too long, heart rising slowly in his chest. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I can do that.”

-

“I’m having a moment Renjun, didn’t I tell you to stop barging into my room like this? You’re so _rude—_ ” Jaemin blinks, rant cut to an abrupt halt. “Uh, you’re not Renjun.”

“Is that my bunny plushie?” Jeno says, pointing at what is most certainly his bunny plushie.

“Noooooo way,” Jaemin laughs, a little stilted. “Why would you think that?”

Jeno shakes his head. He’s getting sidetracked. “I came here to apologize,” he begins. Okay, good start.

Jaemin isn’t laughing anymore, but at least he’s not forcing Jeno out the door. Jeno considers that a win.

“I… blamed you for things that were unfair of me to expect from you.” Jeno sucks in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

Jaemin opens his mouth, but Jeno shakes his head. “I’m not done.”

Ah, how does he explain this next part?

“Jaemin,” he says, “I miss your TV commentary and your gasoline coffee and your lame pick-up lines and your cooking and the way you turn everything into a joke. I miss how you steal my clothes when it gets cold at night even though you’re the more fashion-conscious one between the two of us. I miss the way your hair sticks up right after you get out of the shower, and the way you make me wait for you to take a picture of our food before I can dig into it. I miss your laugh and your shower serenades and the way you always carry treats for Bongsik when we go visit her. I guess what I’m trying to say is,” Jeno breathes deeply, doing his best not to dissolve into a puddle on the floor, “I… like you.”

He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, not daring himself to hope. His heart’s out on the table now—it’s up to Jaemin whether to take it or not.

“Do you mean it?” 

Jeno opens his eyes to see the corners of Jaemin’s mouth tilt upward, just the right mix between smug and shy.

“Do you really?” Jaemin asks, stepping closer. 

“Yeah,” Jeno laughs, a giddy sound that bubbles out of his throat. “I really do.”

“That’s good,” Jaemin exhales, leaning in to press his lips against Jeno’s. 

Jeno makes a noise, a little _mmph!_ before he’s kissing back, cheeks flushed. Jaemin curls his hands into the hem of Jeno’s sweater, pulling him closer to lick into his mouth.

“Because I like you too,” Jaemin breaks away to murmur, smiling sweetly all the while.

Somewhere in the sky above them, a thunderstorm brews. The ringing _crack!_ of thunder reaches them right as Jaemin leans in for another kiss. 

Before, Jeno would’ve been dismayed by the reminder of what he’d lost. Now, Jeno simply smiles and pulls Jaemin close.

Maybe power really is about the give and take.

**Author's Note:**

> if the 96z showdown was confusing don’t worry!! unfortunately writing jeno pov meant that there was a lot of backstory that couldn’t be explained, but rest assured that there are explanations!
> 
> come find me here! ⟶ [twitter](https://twitter.com/mythsick) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/elsewhere)


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